Jordan

Shulamit Aloni was a legislator who championed civil rights and was fiercely critical of her country's treatment of Palestinian. Born in Tel Aviv between the wars, she was descended from Polish Jewish rabbinical families. Her life, as a fighter for equality and human rights, and her failure to change Israel's materialistic and paternalistc attitudes, closely reflect the troubled history of the Jewish state.

Lavish hospitality laid on for foreign dignitaries and businessman during the London Olympics has helped British companies secure contracts and agreements abroad worth £1.5bn in areas including oil drilling in Brazil and nuclear power in Jordan.

The West may be flip-flopping over whether or not to send lethal arms to the Syria rebels, but that has not stopped a 12-day military exercise in Jordan, in which thousands of troops from a variety of countries are preparing for the possibility of fighting in Syria. The war games come to an end tomorrow.

The award-winning American war correspondent Michael Hastings, 33, died in a car crash in Los Angeles. Described as a "fearless journalist", the news of his death was announced by his employer Buzzfeed.